sway to the tune
by Jean Kirschstein
Summary: Music has a certain way of evoking thoughts, memories, sensations long buried. Sometimes, they're even good at creating new ones. Ten songs and ten little snapshots to go along with them


**i did a thing**

**these span across the lives of several differen wardens and hawkes, so there isn't any continuity except in the (arielotwen) aeducan entries for some reason**

* * *

**1.) That's Okay by The Hush Sound**

At nights, when it's quiet, Nonna lets herself remember.

She remembers her mother's warm hands and her father's smile, Fergus' laughter and Oren's refreshing eagerness. She remembers the rolling fields and beaches that she grew up with, the trees she used to climb when she felt particularly troublesome.

Nonna Cousland is not an easy woman to deal with, but she does so on purpose; she is afraid of getting to close, of allowing anyone close enough to cause that pain again. She is afraid of loss and the hurt that comes with it.

When that conviction slips, when she feels Leliana's warmth or almost, _almost _cracks a smile at Alistair's fumbling clumsiness, she reminds herself of home. Of her father's voice, rough and cracking with pain; of her mother's pleading words, desperate to save her daughter and keep her husband from dying alone; of Ser Roderick Gilmore's stubborn expression when her told her to _run_. She thinks of Oriana and Oren's corpses, splayed out over the blood-stained rug, and she lets that desolation and hopelessness fill her when someone gets to close.

She rebuilds her walls and carries on.

* * *

**2.) If You Run (Acoustic) by The Boxer Rebellion**

_I am not alone._

It is a mantra that she repeats over and over, and eventually she thinks that she might believe it someday. She can feel Alistair in the back of her mind, a thread of awareness that is provided to her by the taint that they share. Arielotwen clings to that connection, tugs on it, and embraces the warmth that suffuses through her when Alistair glances at her with a tiny smile. She thinks he understands.

She laughs at his jokes and leans on to him when she's hurt, shrinks back into him when they come to the gates of Orzammar. She uses him as an anchor, a shield against the voices that whisper _kinkiller_ to her in her sleep. She accepts his comfort and offers her own and thinks of the rose she pressed between the pages of a book.

* * *

**3.) The World Spins Madly On by The Weepies**

The world is a chaotic place. Garrett knows that.

He knows it all too well: the animosity between mages and everyone else, the looming threat of the Qunari, the uneasiness of displaced Fereldans. He faces it all every day, squares his shoulders and steels his heart, and walks out his door. He has his scars to show for it.

But at night, when Hightown is quiet and everything is still, his home exists in the eye of the storm. Bodahn is cheery, as he had been for all the years that Hawke had known him, and the fire leaped merrily in the hearth. He goes upstairs, tired, dragging his feet, and he is comforted by the normalcy of it all, by the simple constancy of home.

He opens the door to his room and when Anders looks up from the desk with a smile and a 'welcome home' kiss, Garrett lets himself relax.

* * *

**4.) I'll Follow You Into The Dark by Death Cab for Cutie**

As a part of the warrior caste, Gorim knew what his future held for him since he was old enough to understand such things.

He would become a soldier, or a bodyguard to some noble that didn't even know how to hold a sword. He was not bothered by the fact; it was just something that _was_.

But when he saw her, his breath was taken away.

She walked with confidence, bedecked in simple armor. Her face was smooth, expressionless, completely blank, her gloved hands clasped behind her back. Pale eyes looked him up and down, and a tiny smile played at the edges of her full lips when he met her gaze evenly. "He'll do," she'd said, and he had been lost.

Gorim knew exactly what he was doing when he pledged himself to Arielotwen Aeducan. His life would be hers; his sword, his arm, his alleigance. She would become his priority; she would come first above everything else, above his house and his family and his very life. His oath would only be dissolved when one or the other of them died.

He was okay with that.

* * *

**5.) Some Die Young by Laleh**

Tzaphiel had always been wild.

Tamlen had been her only friend because he was the only one who could tolerate her, while all their other age-mates watched her warily from the corner of their eyes. She was strange, an outlier, and that was something dangerous among the Dalish.

As she grew, she only became more strange. She wandered often and scaled trees like a squirrel and when she came of age, Tzaphiel threw the entire clan my claiming the marks of Falon'Din. The sharp, jagged lines that sprawled across her face were so unlike those of her kinsman and their soft, curling tattoos that they only served as a visual reminder of how _different_ she was.

When she met Zevran, it didn't seem so bad. Devoting herself to the god of the dead seemed to keep her from _joining_ the dead, and Zevran found himself both intimidated and attracted to her feralness.

When he regained his senses and found her limp body under the Archdemon's massive jaw, he nearly wished she wasn't so strange.

* * *

**6.) Sort Of by Ingrid Michaelson**

Fenris was... unaccustomed to unconditional things, Hawke knew. Freinds, love, Varric's tab at the Hanged Man. It didn't matter. He always expected some kind of retribution for expressions of kindness.

Hawke knew that. She knew that going into it, but it still broke her heart when he looked at her with those sad green eyes and all but ran from her bed. He was everything she shouldn't want, but she had fallen in love with him anyway, and that was just about the worst thing she could do.

It didn't help that he kept her scarf around his wrist and her crest on his belt.

* * *

**7.) Zombie by The Pretty Reckless**

She watched Bhelen's face pale and heard the shakey bluster in his words and she drew some sick kind of satisfaction from his fear.

Arielotwen did not know him. Her Bhelen was sweet, kind, shrewd in the way that all politicians were, but not cruel. Never cruel. Her Bhelen was a child with a wide, open face and admiring blue eyes. She did not know this creature, this heartless shell, in front of her.

"Warden," he said, shocked, shaken. _Sister._

Arielotwen showed him a smile that was all teeth and watched him tremble. She would not harm him, not unless he forced her hand, but it was good to watch him fear her. She replied, "Brother," and he nearly fainted.

* * *

**8.) Doctor Blind by Emily Haines & the Soft Skeleton**

It was hard to hole Justice- _Vengence-_ in check these days.

It was even harder to see where the spirit ended and the man began- those lines had been blurred long ago. It scared Anders, exhilarated him. With Justice's aid he was making a difference, helping mages and their families. On the other hand, he kept spiraling and spiraling out of control, losing his grip on reality and his sanity.

It was hard to smile. Hawke's worry gnawed at him and he tried to crack a joke to ease her anxiety, to smooth the lines in her forehead with kisses, but Justice roared indignantly in his head. It _hurt_, oh Maker it hurt, and he couldn't- it was difficult to even think about her without causing pain, let alone speak to her.

Days passed without him realizing it, and everything he saw was cloaked in the strange iridescnece of the Fade. He was... desperate, he supposed, but he wasn't sure for what. Salvation? Help? Warmth?

An end?

* * *

**9.) White Blank Page by Mumford and Sons**

Oh, Maker, he couldn't help it. It was terrible, horrible, made him feel like dirt, but _he couldn't help it._

He had a lovely wife, a lovely daughter at home in Gwaren, both beautiful and gentle and golden, and he adored them both, but they were not her. Gwaren was cold and wet and nothing without Rowan's light and Maric's warmth.

He adored Celia, but he did not love her. He tried, tried with all of his heart, but he just _couldn't. _He was well and truly ruined, by Rowan and Maric both, and he felt terrible. He knew that Celia knew, saw her sad little smiles and hesitant touches. She was _kind_, so unfailingly good, too good for him. She deserved a man who could love her, he thought. Not me, not someone who abandoned her in a lonely, dreary castle by the sea.

* * *

**10.) Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect by The Decemberists**

All Alistair had wanted to do was protect her.

He hadn't wanted to hurt her, not ever, and he thinks that he would have been better without ever having become king. She kneels before him, expressionless, though her eyes are angry and betrayed and his crown feels far too heavy.

"King Alistair," she says flatly, and he tries not to flinch.

By Andraste, he had loved her so much. Loved her more than anything he had ever loved before. He still does, and it hurts. He had thought he was doing the right thing, taking the throne and offering her a place at his side. He remembers her fury, her disgust, how she refused to be made into some back-room whore.

"Please," he says quietly, voice strangled. He's not sure what he's asking for and Eamon shoots him a sharp look, but Arielotwen's mouth tightens almost imperceptibly.


End file.
